by Tijan
He didn’t move, his eyes fixed on a point in the wall. Unmoving. Unseeing. “The guy bled out. They nicked an artery to make it slow and painful. Their wallets were gone. That’s how they got it classified as a mugging gone wrong, but it was an execution. The only better way to have done it was a bullet to the forehead, have them on their fucking knees, but they didn’t go that route. I don’t know why. No one was fooled, except maybe my siblings.”
I itched to move closer to him, to touch his arm, his side. “How do your siblings think she died?”
The smile he gave me was ugly. My soul cringed.
“Sudden-onset cancer.”
I almost choked. “Are you serious?”
“My dad set up a doctor’s appointment, sans my mother. The doctor showed him a file, told everyone about the diagnosis, and she was ‘whisked off’ to hospice. She was supposedly dead days later.” He shook his head. “She’d been in the fucking morgue the whole time, her body on ice until the funeral.”
My head swam. For him. For his mother. For Brooke, and the rest.
“I’m—”
He turned to look at me. “Do not pity me. Don’t you fucking dare.” His eyes flared with hatred, but it wasn’t for me. I knew that. It still felt like another punch, though, almost as bad as seeing my dad’s articles earlier.
“This is how we die in my family,” he seethed. “Violently. Harshly. Cord’s death was made to look like a plane accident. I made my dad’s look like it was natural causes. My mom’s was a mugging. The end is the same. We die. You want to be here? You want to be a part of this? You want to be locked in like I am? Because the end is the same. No matter what. Today. Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Twenty, if you’re lucky. The end is the same. Someone will decide they want you dead, and it’ll happen. In this life, we wish for natural causes. I would love to die in my sleep, or even from an accident, as long as it’s a true accident. I don’t want to die because of someone else’s calculations, but I have a hard time imagining I’ll get that lucky.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. For once, I wasn’t cringing, flinching, biting back sympathy.
I rose to my feet, slowly, and locked my chin in place. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Did he really not remember? “My father used to beat my mother on a weekly basis, sometimes daily. I was sent away to Hillcrest because she feared he’d get me too. He wanted her dead. Remember? He would’ve killed me. You said it before, he’ll probably do the same to my cousin one day. I was born in darkness just as much as you. Maybe yours is darker, I don’t know, but it’s not like I ever decided to be normal. I didn’t like the ‘light’ life. I helped others disappear too. What do you think we see when we find them? Those people are at their lowest. They’re fighting for their lives. And we’ve been too late. Have I told you about those times?”
My voice sounded dull, echoing inside of me.
I kept on, though. He had to hear this. “Girls who got away from their pimps, who called for help. We get to a lot of them too late. We find their bodies. Or we show up to an empty hotel and get word a week later their body was identified in the morgue. Trafficked girls too. It’s not just rich assholes we save people from. It’s all walks of life. Girls who left home trying to get away from an abusive father or mother, get lured in by the promise of easy money, and get hooked on drugs. Prostitution. It’s those too.” I stepped toward him, my voice soft as silk. “Those girls you turn a blind eye to, who are trafficked in your territory, in your country. Those girls.”
He watched me come toward him, his gaze matching my tone. Like a loving snake waiting to pounce.
“What would you like me to do in those situations?” he asked.
“Stop them.” Easy. “Make that go away.”
“Just like that?” He gave me a hollow laugh. “You don’t know anything, do you, little girl?”
Oh, that fucker.
“I know the reason you reacted so violently to those people Brooke was staying with was because you recognized the signs.” This was the ace up my sleeve.
I stood almost toe-to-toe with him. “I know she was being groomed, and she didn’t even know it. She was living in that filth. It would’ve taken one bored night where she went upstairs and had a drink with them. One drink. One drug. A second night of drugs. More and more until she forgot why she was with them in the first place, until she was desperate and would’ve done anything. Or she would’ve started while she was high, out of it enough where they could use a camera on her. Right?”
I reached out, my heart jumping all over the place, but my arm steady.
I shouldn’t have, but I touched his chest.
His heart was racing just like mine, unsteady and erratic. Out of control.
I licked my lips and stared at his chest as it rose and fell under my palm. “You said no one was in the house, but that wasn’t true, was it?” I didn’t wait for the answer. I didn’t need it this time. “You had those people killed, and you burned down the house to destroy the evidence.” My eyes lifted to his now. “Didn’t you?”
He stared right into me, slipping past my walls, my barriers to see me naked and stripped bare for him. But I saw him, just as much as he saw me.
Slowly, he reached up until his hand curled around my neck.
He pulled me close, crushing my hand between us, and as he bent for my lips, he said, so softly, “You’re goddamn right I did. And I’d do it again.”
Then his mouth fused with mine.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
No words. None at all.
Just right now.
Need. Want. Claim.
Mine.
Our mouths battled, both of us trying to dominate the other. I was almost bursting with need.
I needed to feel him.
I needed to touch him.
I needed to claim him.
I didn’t care where we were. We could’ve been in the middle of the street, but I needed his touch on me, his body on me, his everything on me.
I needed him. My feelings were hot. They were demanding. They were dirty and complicated. They were everything in the gray part of life.
As we pushed against each other, our mouths laying claim, he ripped off my shirt. My pants. I dragged my nails over his, trying to tear it off.
“Fuck,” he breathed, his hand sliding between our bodies, pushing inside my underwear, and then finally me.
I paused, gasping for air as I felt him inside of me. I’d been thirsting for this touch from him since he left. The time away, the day, had been too long, and everything was muddied around me.
When he was in me, the world righted. I wasn’t confused anymore.
It was him. It was me. It was whatever this was between us, and as a second finger joined the first, I arched backward from the pleasure pulsating through me.
He moved his fingers, owning me, and his mouth trailed over my exposed throat, my chest, to my breast, then to the other. He suckled, tasted, licked, caressed.
God. I loved this man.
I hated him, but I loved him, and clamping a hand to the back of his head, I knew my need for him wouldn’t be satiated with just one time. It’d be over and over again until I couldn’t walk, until I couldn’t crawl, until I couldn’t even think about moving again.
That time might never come.
I knew, as his mouth switched to my other breast and his fingers pumped inside of me, that I was gone.
I growled, grabbing for his pants. I took out his cock and wrapped my hand around it.
If he owned me, I would own him too. It’d go both ways, or I would burn everything down around us.
I wound my legs around his waist, and he had a moment’s notice to pull his fingers out. He caught me under my ass, and I lowered myself over him, sheathing him inside of me.
He held me, our eyes meeting, and we gasped at the sensation. I began moving up and down.
The surprise was gone. His eyes went black, and his hands tightened. He crashed me into the wall, pinning my
hands above my head. His mouth went to my throat, and he began to suck, making me feel things I didn’t know a person could.
I moaned, my legs tightening around his waist.
He moved my hands together, securing them with one of his, and his free hand went to my clit. He rubbed and teased as he took control, as he thrust in and out of me, pushing, shoving almost violently.
I could only hiss out, “Yesssss” through my teeth. I was blind with desire and drunk with pleasure.
Something crashed to the floor.
He kept thrusting in me, deeper and deeper.
He was making me his, but when had I not been? Really? Then his mouth found my breast again, and I was gone, lost in the darkness of our coupling.
He pushed in, out, in, out until I felt myself coming. An explosion crashed inside of me, and I screamed, gasping as it ripped through me, leaving me trembling in his arms. Once I was done, he carried me to the bed. Then he pulled out, moved me to my knees, and stood behind me.
He gripped my shoulder and molded himself over me.
His cock found my entrance, and as his teeth nipped at my skin, he pushed back in.
No. I’d been wrong. This. This was him claiming me.
One hand held my breast, the other held my waist, and as I turned back for him, his mouth found mine, and he fucked me until he came too.
It was rough, but it was us. He opened a channel inside of me where dark things happened, a place most people didn’t want to acknowledge. Not Kai. Not me. He’d found it in me, made me look at it, and then he took me there and was making it my home.
I shouldn’t have wanted it. I shouldn’t have wanted him, but I could no longer deny that I was his.
Everything had been leading to this point—the time when I would seek him out, when I would follow him, when I would make him come and get me. We were there now, and I hadn’t known until this moment.
I’d known everything was going to change when that plane left to bring me here. Now I knew how complete that change would be.
I rolled to my back, and he fell down next to me—both of us panting, sweating, tingling—and then his hand found mine and he squeezed. He curled toward me, his leg moving over me, holding me in place, and he pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder.
“Don’t leave again,” he murmured.
I squeezed back; that was all the energy I could muster. “Never.”
And there, we both fell asleep, my world completely changed.
I just didn’t know if it was for the better.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I woke and rolled over. It was still dark outside.
Kai sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me, his elbows resting on his knees. I sat up, scooting over to slip my legs around both sides of him. He tensed at first, then relaxed as I rested my cheek to his back, breathing him in.
He caught one of my hands, tugging it to his chest. “Do you regret anything?” he asked, his back rumbling with the question.
I held still a moment. He was asking so much.
“No.” I relaxed. I squeezed his hand. “Not one thing.”
He raised our hands, pressing a kiss to them. “Good.” Instead of turning to me, he reached behind him and dragged me around to straddle his lap. I raised my arms, resting them on his shoulders. I grinned at him, easing back to take in his entire face.
His hair was tousled. I could see soft lines of tiredness around his mouth, but his eyes were alert. Awake. He reached up, his fingers sliding to cup the back of my head.
He drew me close, my forehead touching his. “You’re here now.”
“I’m here now.”
“I have things to do here.”
“I know.” My hand twitched. He felt it, raising his eyebrows.
“Will you be okay with that?”
“I came to see my father.” But there was more. I’d come for him too. I just didn’t know it until I got here.
He nodded, his fingers tracing my sides. “I want to remove your father from his company.” He paused, observing me intently. “And I want you to replace him.”
I leaned farther back to really take him in.
There was a guardedness, a resigned expression behind his eyes—as if he was warning me, but also waiting for…something. I didn’t know what.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Are you willing to do that? I can have someone replace you, if you want. If you’re willing to help me.”
I grinned. “We’re back to the original proposition then?”
His grin was rueful, but ominous at the same time. “You came here of your own volition. I won’t send you away. I’ll only make you do something if it’s for your safety. That’s it. I promise.” He looked me over. “I don’t promise often.”
My mouth was suddenly parched. “Okay. I mean…” I licked my lips. “Yes. I’ll do what I can.”
“I need to remove your father from the Bello Company, and I’ll put you in his place. If you stay, it’s up to you. It can be real, or it can be for show. I can have Tanner come down to act as your spokesman. That’s all up to you.”
Why was he telling me this?
What else was going to happen?
But I nodded. “I’ll do it.”
And as soon as I said those words, the butterflies were back, and this time they had steel-edged wings. That meant so many things: I would reveal myself as not being dead to the public. I would have to face my father. It had been a nightmare for half my life, a revenge-filled dream, a goal, and now—I gulped—a reality. A whole tornado kicked up inside of me.
“What about my cousin?” I asked.
Kai shook his head, closing his eyes and tugging me against him. I looked into his eyes, seemingly closer to him than I’d ever been before. He wasn’t guarded now. He seemed to be seeking comfort in me, in my embrace.
Some of the tornado lessened.
He moved to kiss my neck and breathed out, “She won’t be a problem.”
I tipped back, a finger under his chin as I raised his face.
“Why not?”
A shudder went through his chest. He gripped my hand and held it between my breasts, his thumb sneaking out to graze one. “Because she’s a non-factor. She’s not his daughter. She’s not related to him by blood at all. She is his mistress. That’s it.”
“Not girlfriend?”
“Mistress is more appropriate. Trust me.” His gaze hardened. “She doesn’t matter to him, not after he sees you again.”
“Is she the only one who might have a claim to his position, though?”
“Only if they were married. They’re not. I checked.”
“I thought they were engaged.”
“An engagement doesn’t beat out a daughter. And when you’re presented to him, he’ll champion you. I promise.”
The dark shivers I’d begun to equate with Kai went down my spine again. He was planning something, but this time, I wasn’t on the other side. This time, I knew I needed to trust him.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” His grin showed, becoming infectious.
Those damn dimples too.
I laughed, shaking my head. “You look like a little boy who got his favorite piece of candy.”
His eyes darkened. “Because I did.” He hardened beneath me and leaned forward, his eyes holding mine until I felt his lips on my throat. They were now commanding, and the throb within me burst into a full-fledged fire.
My breathing quickened, along with my pulse, and I tipped my head back as his mouth began to explore. Down. Down. Nuzzling between my breasts, then sweeping over to take one nipple into his mouth. His tongue wrapped around me, kissing me, tasting.
A full body sigh left me, and slowly, inch-by-inch, he lowered me back to lie on his legs. My head came to rest just over his knees. I was stretched out for his feasting, and as he released one breast, he moved to the other. He took his time, making my entire body clench, tremble, and tighten, only for him to do it all over again.
He
moved farther down.
Farther.
All the way until I felt his lips on my clit.
He was bent almost in half, and his tongue pushed inside.
I gasped, sensations coursing through me, setting everything on end.
He kissed and sucked, thrusting his tongue in, then licking, while his fingers rubbed over me. It wasn’t long before I was gasping, air caught in my throat, and I exploded for him.
A few moments later I still wanted him, but that had mixed with a languid contentment. Every bone in my body melted as he readjusted us, laying me on my back and moving between my legs. He crawled up, holding himself above me, his muscles rock hard, and then he pushed inside. He watched me the whole time.
Dark. Delicious. Desire.
All of it rolled together as he moved inside of me. This was different than before. This was a meeting of the souls. He was tugging me farther into his world.
A tremor wound up inside of me, like a snake, and once it worked itself all the way to the top of my head, I exploded once more.
He was right behind me, falling over me, his body quaking and trembling with his release.
I lie beside him as his heartbeat slowed to match mine.
He ran a hand down my side as he eased out of me. I couldn’t form a thought or even a word. We had started to fall asleep when there was a shuffle of feet outside my door.
“I say, this is my house. My business,” a sharp voice protested. “You let me in there. I need to check on my customer. It’s my right!”
A low male voice spoke to her.
“I said what I said! I ain’t moving.”
Another shuffle of feet and a soft, reluctant knock on the door.
Kai tensed for a second before pushing up. “Hold on.”
He jumped out of bed, moving with ease and athleticism. Flashing me an apologetic look, he dressed and moved to the door.
He opened it, and I sat up in bed, tugging the sheet to cover me.
His guards were there. And I was able to get a glimpse of the B&B’s owner.
“Ma’am.”
I almost snorted. That word coming from Kai was a new one. He said something more, shutting the door so I couldn’t hear the rest.
